“I wish life were a fiction novel. Then everyone would have to do what I say.”

“I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make them important to the people who love them is that there’s always another perspective.”

“Plenty of people were writing novels; in fact, if one did a survey in the street, half of Edinburgh was writing a novel, and this meant that there really weren't enough characters to go round. Unless, of course, one wrote about people who were themselves writing novels. And what would the novels that these fictional characters were writing be about? Well, they would be novels about people writing novels.”

“I wish she was dead,' he says. 'I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.”

“I wish...I wish I were dead...”“And what use would that be to anyone?”

“I began to write fiction on the assumption that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting and theme.”